134 More Tales of the Birds 



been conferred upon him by the old Scholar one 

 day as he walked up and down his garden path, 

 glancing now and then at the friendly pair on the 

 tower. And in one way or another we had all 

 come to know of it ; and even visitors to the 

 village soon made acquaintance with the Doctor 

 and his wife. 



No one, as I said, unless it were his old friend 

 the Vicar, knew whence or why the old Scholar 

 had come to take up his abode among us. We 

 thought he must have had some great sorrow in 

 his life which was still a burden to him : but if it 

 was the old old story, he never told his love. 

 Yet the burden he carried, if there were one, did 

 not make him a less cheerful neighbour to the 

 folk around him. He knew all the old people in 

 the village, if not all the young ones : he would 

 sit chatting in their cottages on a wet day, and 

 on a fine one he would stroll around with some 

 old fellow past his work, and glean old words and 

 sayings, and pick up odds and ends of treasure 

 for the history of the parish which he was going 

 to write some day. 



" I am like Dr. and Mrs. Jackson," he would 



